So I work at a school for massage therapy right – we have a student run clinic. Unfortunately we don’t always fill all the possible appointments with people from the general public & the students do need to get their hours in, so I got an hour-long full body massage this afternoon. This happens just about once a week. I don’t get health care, (yet) but regular massage is a nice perk. K, who worked on me, discovered that all of my stress is being stored in my legs (which is an odd place to store your stress I think). My calf muscles were/are like rocks and I was wincing as she tried to get them to release. She’s a great therapist – it’s a real grab bag in the student clinic because you never know how far along in their program they are – but there’s almost no such thing as a bad massage from anyone (almost) especially an hour long one. My ilio-tibial band on my right leg, which is a tendon that runs down the outside of your leg, is as tight as a guitar string. Drink lots of water Karl. I was trying to decide why I would store my stress in my legs, something to do with trying to ground yourself when so many emotions are in play – like I’m bracing myself, or trying to grip the planet with my toes to keep from getting knocked over. Deby and Ann made me look up legs in the Lousie Hay book Heal Your Body- according to Louise storing stress in your legs is the direct result of a fear of moving forward in your life – she recommends the mantra, “I am confident and can move forward freely.” My ex R thought this sort of thinking blamed the victim, when we looked up her medical issues Louise suggested they were caused by hanging on to anger against men. She did have father issues and ex issues for sure, and now I imagine she has plenty more – I’m a bit of a typhoon when it comes to dating – it’s a mixed bag, I have several ex’s who call all the time and are still close with me & others who never want to hear from me again – I suppose that’s true of my friends as well – I suppose some people know you when you’re on the same page with them, the same job etc. other people just know you regardless of circumstance and when you get someone it’s easier to forgive them their foibles because you see in them a bit of the universal and the universe learns my making mistakes. It’s all in the legs – I need to move forward. As to the victim thing, my sister V read Hay’s book You Can Heal Your Life and really took the book to heart, she stopped blaming other people for her medical issues and really took some responsibility, part of the new age paradigm is that our bodies are a reflection of our consciousness, mirrors reflectin mirrors – our health issues are our issues 100 percent manifest – and yet things happen to our bodies that we wouldn’t will… obviously extreme things like Glenn’s murder, like Linda, like Mary’s death in the car accident (my ex girlfriend Mary was killed this past summer in a horrible car accident. 30 years old. She was a passenger in car on the way to a concert of religious music in downtown St. Louis. The man who killed her claimed to be running from men who were trying to kill him, he was driving a stolen car, he fled the scene but turned himself in the next day so no telling on the drunk driving bit. She was brain dead at the scene and was very outspoken about being an organ donor, over 100 people received organs and tissue from Mary, in her death she may have saved 100 lives – I haven’t written about this – I guess I was keeping it in my legs – I’m crying now. Her church is literally diagonally across the street from my house. I walked over with BJ to the three-hour memorial service. Last summer she built houses in the rural south, they are starting a foundation in her name to continue that work. Mary liked to read Romance novels, I was going out of town for the weekend and I worked at Used Books & Unicorns in the ville – I left maybe fifty romance novels on her front porch with note that they would keep her busy until I got back. We were together six months or so in around 1996, we broke up after she moved to St. Louis as the distance wasn’t working. I saw her at a party right when I was moving back to St. Louis and at that party we got closure. I am so grateful for that conversation. Nancy’s observation on hearing that story was, well, I guess she’s still alive then in all of those people.”